


Triple word square

by Toinette93



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Couch Cuddles, Friendship, Gen, I don't have an English-language set so the scores don't match, Internalized Homophobia, Scrabble, Slightly less drunk!Freddie, Very drunk!Roger, mentionned Brian May and John Deacon, mentionned OC, needlessly precise descriptions of Scrabble matches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27780412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toinette93/pseuds/Toinette93
Summary: Freddie and Roger are drunk, they play Scrabble, Freddie has a low-key identity crisis.Also, cuddles.
Relationships: Freddie Mercury & Roger Taylor
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17
Collections: The Froger Week 2020





	Triple word square

“I’m plastered.” Says Roger. There’s a hint of surprise in his voice – after all he’s just noticed, although that has, in fact, been true for a while – and also a piece of pride. Because he’s well and totally drunk, and in that inebriated state, that seems like something he should be proud of. Somehow.

He expects a laugh, a congratulation, an agreement  from his three friends and bandmates, but he doesn’t get any, except from a vague grunt from Freddie. Now, the lack of answer from John makes sense, Roger remembers. John actually went to bed about an hour ago and so he isn’t here. Ergo, he hasn’t heard what Roger just said and can’t answer. Roger is very proud of his bit of logical reasoning there. 

Brian should have said something, though. Roger knows the guitarist is drunk too. Give enough vodka tonics to that big lanky mix of limbs and hair and you get largely unpredictable but often funny results. Roger turns his head towards Brian. The whole room turns a little but it’s alright. From the available evidence, Roger deduces the guitarist has fallen asleep. He wouldn’t mind waking him up, but then, Brian tends to be cranky when woken up, and Roger thinks cranky Brian is maybe a bad way to end a perfectly nice evening.

So, unto Freddie. Who’s just groaned. Roger turns to him this time. Freddie looks… bored? Is that the right emotion? Roger’s glasses have gotten lost sometime during the evening, and without them  **and** a lot of alcohol in his veins, Roger kind of can’t see his face properly. He doesn’t look happy and joyful, that’s for sure.  Roger decides he has to do something about it. This is a party – although what they were celebrating exactly he’s not quite entirely certain he remembers at that point in time – and so, people should have fun. Freddie is a person, and, far more importantly, his friend. 

Roger’s gazes stops on the scrabble board next. They’d played a few times  during the night. This is their last games, in which Roger had been very proud of the point gotten by spelling “cocaine” on a triple word square. He thought he’d win for sure, but then, at the very last moment, Brian had  won again, by one point, by spelling “photometry”. Bloody astronomer. Against Freddie, though, he has more of a chance. And so he decides to offer to play again, with him this time. 

* * *

“Hey, Freddie, you want to play Scrabble again?”

“Hmm? What? Scrabble? Oh, yes with pleasure.” Freddie says.

They start to play. Freddie’s mind isn’t on the game and it shows. He lets Roger, who is too drunk to even be doing it on purpose, get away with some questionable spellings. His own word choices lack imagination, and he seems to just be trying to get rid of the tiles.

He hasn’t really drunk for a little while, sipping at the same stale half-pint for the last hour or so, and he’s starting to sober up a bit from his earlier state. Enough to be able to think back about what he said earlier. They had been talking about girls, women they had found attractive, and in some cases had sex with. Freddie had dutifully played along – some of the people he had been talking about may have been men, but he’d changed their names and called them “she”. Then, with a bit more vodka in his blood, he’d forgotten the pretence and talked about Bernard – an unmistakeably male name.

Bernard had been tall, handsome, strong and very eager. They’d had a quick fuck at some party Freddie had been to.  He didn’t think he would see him again, but he remembered the silkiness of his hair and the firmness of his hand and,  well, other parts. He almost smile s at the memory, then recall s that he ha s no idea how much of it he ha s actually told his bandmates, his friends. He  doesn’t want them to think… He  isn’t like that. 

A slightly more self-aware part of his brain tells him that he definitely is _like that_ , he has sex with men on a fairly regular basis, what else could he call it. Roger, Brian, and John hadn’t screamed in disgust, nothing like that, they hadn’t said anything, really, and the subject had changed shortly afterwards. They wouldn’t do something like that, they are far too polite (yes, even Roger), and they probably know, really but… They can’t be ok, with it now, can they? It isn’t a crime, not anymore but, it isn’t quite natural either. Brian is generally so proper even if he does have a very naughty streak, and John is catholic, and the Pope sure doesn’t like fairies. Roger might be a bit more open, but he likes women so much, surely he must be at least a bit disgusted by all this. 

The thing  is , he’ s never really talked about  i t  before . That’s not the kind of thing you talk about.  You hide it behind doors and everyone pretends they do not know. Best case scenario, it’s tolerated, worst case, they kill you. Not that he thinks his three friends, these three friends, would be capable of something like that. 

But what if they think he wants to do something to them. He wouldn’t of course, they’re quite visibly non interested, and besides they’re not his type. John is like a baby-brother, Brian looks like a stick with hair, he’s far too tall, and his type is definitely more big burly Bernard than fine-featured almost feminine, blue-eyed Roger. All right, he can understand the appeal of those dove-eyes but he’s not actually interested.

S peaking of the devil… 

“Freddie, it’s your turn.”

Freddie had forgotten all about the game. He places a “T” next to the first “O” he find available on the board and dives right back into his own head.

* * *

There is something wrong about Freddie, thinks Roger. He’s not paying attention to the game, and his last move was very stupid.  Roger gets closer to see his friend’s face right. He should really put his glasses back on but he has no idea where he put them. 

“Freddie? Are you ok?”

“Yes, I’m perfectly fine, dear. Your turn.”

Now, Roger figures that if even in his very, very drunk state he can tell that was bullshit, then it probably means that it is a very big pile of bullshit. Or horseshit. Some sort of animal excrement. Focus, he tells himself, not the moment to get distracted by synonyms. Roger likes Scrabble, but right now, it’s in the way, so he takes the board and closes him down, pouring the tiles (mostly) into the bad. All right, some of it may have landed into Brian’s hair, but that will have to wait.

“Roger!”

Freddie’s voice is affronted. Roger doesn’t let him. His finger pointing at Freddie’s chest, poking into it a few times along the way.

“Your game was lousy anyway. Now, something’s obviously wrong, so spill the beans.”

“It’s just late… And stop poking me.”

Roger kept on poking him. “I’ll do that until you tell me what’s going on. It’s no fun to win at Scrabble when the other person is not competing.” Roger wasn’t exactly sure he’d been winning. He’d sort of lost count part way through, but it wasn’t important right now.

After a few pokes, Freddie relented.

“You’re not…? About what I said earlier…?”

Roger searched in his head what this could be about but he didn’t have a clue.

“What?”

“About Bernard…”

“Bernard? Oh, that guy you had sex with? What about him?”

“You don’t care that I…?”

“Have sex with blokes? You can have sex with all of London, men and women for all I care, I’m not exactly the traditional marriage type you know. It’s not of my business, Fred.”

Roger can’t help but feel he’s missing something. He’s starting to wish he were a bit more sober right now.

Freddie isn’t sure what pushes him into uttering his next sentence. Strong vodka would be his best bet.

“It’s…it’s not just the sex, dear. Well, it definitely was with Bernard but...”

“Well, I don’t care if you fall for some bloke either. As long as we can go to the pub and to the movies and all that. And before you say anything, Brian and John don’t care either. They’re not assholes.”

Roger sees the uncertainty in Freddie’s face, the doubt that he can’t seem to erase. He loves Freddie, he’s his best mate, like Brian, and John, but he can’t exactly tell him that, now can he? Besides it’s 6 a.m., he’s tired, and his drunkenness is slowly but surely turning into a hangover, and he’s had enough of this bullshit. He thinks there are probably a few jerks and a whole society that would deserve a punch in the face for making his friend feels that way but he’s too tired to figure out the logistics. So he just smacks a kiss on Freddie’s head, hugs him, and then just falls asleep half on top of him. There, he thinks, that should make things clear enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey people!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this, it is my last entry for the 2020_Froger Week! Thanks so much for the organisers for the whole thing, it was a lot of fun ! 
> 
> Take care out there,
> 
> Toinette, out.


End file.
